


One Stone

by Rulerofthefakeempire



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti)
Genre: And not expect any sort of medical or logistical explanations because I have none, Blood, Eddie Kaspbrak Lives, Fix-It, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, POV Richie Tozier, Please ignore the final twenty minutes of the film, Post movie I guess, Secretly Married AU, whatever
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-01
Updated: 2019-12-31
Packaged: 2020-11-08 23:35:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,641
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20843894
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rulerofthefakeempire/pseuds/Rulerofthefakeempire
Summary: “He’s my husband,” the words come out of him like a gasp, like an innocent plea from under the weight of endless evidence, he’s my husband, he’s mine, he’s all I have, please don’t take him away from me.*Au where Richie and Eddie met again outside of Derry, fall in love and get married, but pretend not to know each other when they get the call from Mike because of this deep dark feeling that you shouldn't let well loved things near entities with sharp teeth.*





	1. Part 1

**Author's Note:**

> Listen, Imma be honest. Secretly married is one of my favourite au's and I think its obligatory at this point. Anyway, I saw the film last week and I've been thinking about this ever since. Will come in three parts and a small part of my soul. 
> 
> Proceed with the show.

“Please don’t take him,” he whispers, monitoring his breathing with everything he's got left, feeling every hitch, every pause, every handful of seconds where it seems like his lungs might never start up again, that the last breath is his last breath, and he’s going. And all Richie can do is stare into the dirt and hold onto him, counting the seconds stretching like decades, holding his breath, knowing that he’ll go too, that he’ll suffocate with him. 

But then Eddie breathes like an old gate creaking shut and they keep going, Richie exhaling into his hair, squeezing his eyes closed, waiting for the next breath and the breath after that and the breath after that, Eddie limp and barely living, barely keeping in his arms.

“Please don’t take him,” he whispers, rambling, shaking, muttering like he’s deranged, “please don’t take him, please don’t take him, please don’t take him,” and the words just keep coming and coming, whispering out of him, over and over, “please don’t take him, please don’t take him, please don’t take him.” If he’d a pen he would have written it on his skin, over and over, if he’d had the voice for it he would have screamed it, if he’d had prayer in him, he would have prayed. Instead he just whispers desperate pleas into his hair and holds him against his chest, his limp body between his legs, sitting collapsed on the curb, the house caved in behind them.

“Please don’t take him, please, please don’t take him,” the words have lost all meaning, ringing barely human in his ears, meaning shifting, melting and reforming, so hard to keep a hold of. It's so hard to tell if he’s still holding onto the hope that they’ll be okay, or if he’s started just hoping that he won’t have to last long without him, hoping for a fast truck with bad breaks or a grand piano from a three story window, a lightening strike, a bulldozer, something, anything. “Please don’t take him,” he whispers, kissing his ears between breaths, nothing answering him, no god, no It, no manifestation of a universe with a care, an investment, the power to give or take. But he can’t take the chance, can’t risk there being something, someone listening, someone who might be convinced, threatened, bargained with, something that might be merciful, there to hear him beg. 

Someone, one of them is calling an ambulance, he can hear it, sort of, in the distance. Like it’s just him and Eddie, sitting behind thick glass, trying to beat the clock, hold on, just hold on, just for a little longer, together. 

“Please don’t take him,” his hair smells like shit, wet with sweat and blood and water. Nothing like himself, unfamiliar, foreign, so used to the way he usually smells, like baby powder and disinfectant, like fresh laundry, spring cleaning. Richie can still remember the first time he’d leaned in and smelt his own cologne on him, cigarette smoke in his hair, carrying parts of him places even when he wasn’t there. It had been such a good opportunity to fuck with him, so many potential jokes, but the silence had been more important, knowing that he'd never lived a beauty like this before, that he'd do anything to keep from breaking it. 

He can still remember being all warm and sparkly on the inside for days afterwards, nose buried in his hair, all but giddy. 

A sob hiccups out of him, barely balanced on the razors edge, barely holding onto the cliff’s ledge, still waiting for the free-fall, the descent and the impact, half sobbing, half muttering into his hair. Stuck trying to bargain with anyone that might listen, that may look down and see how hard he’d worked, how hard he’s willing to work, all the things he’s willing to offer, give away, sacrifice, whatever. Anything but this. 

Nothing would be able to keep him from a knife, a bottle, a bullet and he wouldn’t get over it. 

There would be no getting over it. 

Sirens near, and quietly, he sobs, sobs like a little kid in the dark, disoriented, distressed, on the verge of hysteria. 

“Please don’t take him, please don’t take him, please don’t, please don’t take him,” he’s rocking, shaking, holding onto him like he can stop this from happening, push his soul back into his body, hold him together like duct tape on his old university car, keeping pressure on the wound, keeping him all wrapped up, trying to keep him warm in their wet clothes, kissing his hair between improvised prayers. 

When the ambulance arrives, he can barely look up, like a record player stuck playing the same note over and over, unable to push out of the grove, unable to keep going with the music, he’s all broken on the inside, every resource he has taken up and used, Eddie gurgling against him, breathing through the blood, leaned back on his chest, still warm. 

He can still remember the first time he felt Eddie lean against him, way back. 

Those first few dates had really just been getting pissed together, working through some trauma they couldn’t remember, trying to beat back the darkness, keep it restrained, keep it buried, smothered by the joy they could bring out in each other. He can remember an evening of Black Russians and cigarettes, loud music, laughter, and the sweet lull of closing time, throwing in the towel and the struggle home. They’d taken the bus, near empty, all the lights doubled, swaying with more than just movement, the city quiet and dark outside, the two of them sitting together, drunk on the fluorescence. And Eddie had slumped against him with a sigh, all tucked against him at the back of the bus, warm and smelling like cherry blossom hand sanitiser and the hibiscus they’d put in his drink, the drink Richie had dared him to order. 

And he should’ve been too old to get taken out by such a simple gesture of drunken intimacy, but he’d melted like a popsicle in the sun, Eddie snoring on his shoulder, his eyes flickering for eyes on them, watching for the fist to come flying, for the broken nose and fractured rib, for his hair ripped out as they were dragged from the bus. But it never came. No one cared. No one cared about the boy, no one cared that they weren’t maintaining the distance, that the drinking was a date, a _date_. And after a while, he’d slipped his arm around Eddie’s shoulders, cautiously testing the threshold, like a test subject waiting for the electric shock, surprised when none ever came, just the quiet rumble of the bus around them, trundling home with a boy under his arm. 

And he burned on the inside, delight slowly building, eating away at him, at all his reservations, Eddie warm and sweet against his side. 

“Please don’t take him, please don’t take him, please don’t take him,” he whispers, coming faster, more fractured as he sobs, as hands reach from behind the glass, from the space beyond just Eddie and him, others, friends and enemies, indecipherable. 

“We have to take him, Rich,” comes a voice, familiar, firm, “come on, let go, bud.” Someone’s pulling, tugging at his arms clenched around Eddie’s torso, unable to lift his eyes, uncoil, unable to relax, like his bones are made of concrete, like this is the position he’ll take forever, all that’ll be left of him. All he can do is shake his head and whisper “no, please- no.” But they pry his hands away anyway. They take him, and he cries, shaking, stumbling up to his feet, barely able to see, let alone articulate what they’ll need to know, how important he his, how fragile. 

Someone’s got him by the shoulders, trying to keep him still as he surges forward on pin-and-needle legs, and he thinks it’s probably Bill, that soft spoken authority, they way he always feels so goddamn responsible, holding onto him, trying to keep him upright as he stumbles and teeters. 

“Richie, man, breath, just breath.” And he wants to listen, to understand the words, but he’s too focused on desperately trying to clear his eyes, trying to figure out if he’s still wearing his glasses or if they’re so coated in blood and grime that he might as well be left with just his regularly fucked vision, trying to identify the shapes and colours, find him in the mess. But he breaths, sucks in breath after breath like Bill tells him to, his hand on his chest as his head swings around, feeling coming back to his limbs, looking for Eddie in the fray. 

“Any of you family?” 

His eyes jump to the voice, to the blurry figure in a blue uniform, holding what looks like a clipboard, a familiar shape on a stretcher being loaded into the ambulance behind her, Bill holding onto him like he’ll either crumple to the floor or take a step and trip. 

“No, but I’ll ride with-”

Richie finds himself all but shoving him aside, standing as straight as he can, stumbling forward towards the blurry figure, Bill reaching out for him, trying to stop him as his fingers grope under his collar, knowing nothing but that he doesn’t care anymore, doesn’t care that they’d had a plan, that they’d had a script they were going to keep to, doesn’t care that Eddie didn’t want them knowing, that they’d both been afraid.

“He’s my husband,” the words come out of him like a gasp, like an innocent plea from under the weight of endless evidence, _he’s my husband, he’s mine, he’s all I have, please don’t take him away from me._ He yanks the chain out from under his shirt, the ring out with it, shoving it into the blur’s face, as if she’ll know how important it is, almost identical to the one they’ll find on Eddie, one of the few brave things he'd ever managed, the one lottery ticket he'd ever won, the only jackpot he could call his own. 

The others have all gone silent behind him, but even if they’d been talking he wouldn’t have been able to listen, panic thrumming through him like rave music he can't turn off, pounding through his veins, against his skull. 

He’d never meant to get married, never meant to have a husband, he’d meant to be dead by twenty three in the bathroom of a frat party, he’d meant to drink himself to death like his father and his father’s father and the father before that, funny but doomed, it was the Tozier way. He’d always figured that he was just wasting time with Eddie, waiting for him to get tired of him, get bored of him and his replayed jokes, taking what he could get before the sweetness packed up and left. It took him years before he realised that he hadn't even noticed the years passing, the love that purred at the sight of him, until he realised that they were sitting on their couch in their apartment and he had engagement rings burning through his pocket like it was fucking nothing. 

And all he’d been able to think was _I want to spend my life with you. _

“You know his medical history?” The blur asks.

“Y-Yeah.” 

“Get in.” 

And he scrambles over to the mouth of the ambulance like some ancient part of him wants to drop down onto all fours, get back to being prehistoric and instinctive, ring bouncing against his chest. His vision is too fucked to see him properly, but he can hear him breathing, knows he’s breathing, still kicking, still alive, Richie stuck feeling like a dog chained up outside a supermarket, howling at the sky, unable to comprehend whats happened, confused and scared, too dumb to know that Eddie hasn’t even been gone that long. 

Just before he goes pitching in, he’s stopped, a hand on his shoulder, holding onto the back of his shirt, firm and deliberate. 

“Richie,” her voice is soft, nothing like when they were kids, and she’s blurry but he knows its her, by the sound of her voice and the blaze of her hair, “honey, your glasses.” She’s holding something out to him, half cracked and bloodied, but he takes it, the shape familiar in his hand, comforting, like a gift, from one hopeful to another. His eyes flicker up to her, unable to form the words, all the words he wants to say, wanting her to know that he would have told them, if it hadn’t been this way, if it hadn’t all gone so wrong, he would have told them. Eventually. 

“Thanks, Bev, I-” every word is a hitch, a hiccup away from a sob, “Bev, I’m so sorry, I- I’ll explain everything.” 

A paramedic tugs him inside before he can go on, the door closing with a solid thud, the rest of them stuck outside, Richie stuck holding onto his glasses and his husband, tears streaming down his face. 

The blurs sit him down while they work, ripping open Eddie’s shirt; rigid, professional determination on their faces, trying to keep him alive with more than just prayer, the respirators whirring, nitrile gloves because he’s a little bit allergic to latex, so much blood it seems impossible that there’s any left in him. 

And all Richie can do is watch. Watch and whisper his blood type, his conditions and allergies, his asthma, his worries and woes, his favourite radio station, the things he does when he thinks Richie isn’t watching. He tells them his middle name, his birthday, about that one time he got stung by a jellyfish at the beach, his favourite brand of hand sanitiser, the time Richie threw a drink in his face, the way he likes his coffee and the way he likes his eggs, everything he can think of, because it’s important, its all important. 

Because it’s him. 

…

They give him Eddie’s wedding ring when he goes into surgery, his wallet and watch, his phone, but Richie tells them to throw the rest away. His phone blinks to life when he asks it to, even soaked in grey-water, all because of that stupid hundred dollar water-proof, protect-your-phone bullshit case he replaces every six months. He’s going to be so fucking smug if he wakes up.

They tell him it’ll be touch and go, but if he can hang on through the surgery, he just might recover, they just might get through this. Maybe. 

They let him say goodbye, just in case it’s the last time, let him press shaky lips against his forehead and cry over him, whispering every encouraging thing he can think of, every plea said twice, every truth confessed over and over, _I love you and I’m sorry and I love you. _Kissing his cheeks, his eyes, the corners of his mouth like his grandmother in church, tears streaming down his face, crying into his hospital gown, knowing he’s got nothing left to give. 

A nurse pulls him away when it’s time. 

“Thats enough now, love,” she says, “it’s in gods hands now.” 

And it’s not, or maybe it is. It’s been such a long day, he can hardly tell whether he’s a believer anymore, if he’d rather a divine intervention or a medical professional, a prayer or a study, a halo or a shot of morphine. 

The nurse guides him away as he tries to breathe through the sobs, trying to accept that he can’t save him, that there’s nothing he can do now, that he has no jokes to make, nothing that’ll make him laugh, unable to even choke out a sentence without stuttering, Eddie’s eyes closed and ears deaf. All he can do is stumble down the corridor with the nurse, clutching Eddie’s things, unable to stop worrying that he’ll drop the ring and it’ll get lost, that it’ll all get lost because his hands were shaking when he should have been able to hold himself still, should have been able to keep him safe, keep him alive, keep him from the pointy ends of violent things. 

And he can’t shake the feeling that he should have done more, that it should have been him. 

The nurse gives him some clean scrubs to change into, clean socks, shoes to slip into, soft voiced like a weak imitation of some imaginary mother. And Richie figures she’s probably been trained for this, for people crying, high on adrenaline and panic, loosing something so key to their existence you might not keep sharp objects within reach, figures that she’s probably done this before, a thousand times a shift. As he tries desperately to stop the tears, to breath regular breaths, get ahold of himself, force the distress elsewhere, she points him towards a shower cubical with an infinite delicacy. 

“You’re a biohazard, honey, have a wash.” 

And he does as he’s told, watching the red swirl down the drain, knowing most of it is Eddie’s, knowing that if he lives through this he’s going to be so fucked up, so super fucked up. But all he can do is try to scrub off the blood, the evidence. All he can do is turn up the water til it’s scalding, go nuts with the soap, clinical and flavourless, trying to get it off his skin, trying to get back to who he was a week ago, who he was both after and before Derry, in that pocket between instances, the person he’d been for twenty five years. 

Richie can still remember seeing him again for the first time since Derry, in the twenty something years, younger than he is now, but older than he’d been, still half-cooked, still growing into his looks, seeing him from across a crowded room, a sense of familiarity washing over him like a strong wind coming from nowhere, the feeling of having known him once soaking him down to the bone. When he’d opened his mouth, Eddie’s name had come out of it, calling out to him, even if he couldn’t remember when he’d forgotten it, couldn’t remember forgetting him and everything else that he’d been.

And Eddie had looked back, blinking at him, collared shirt, combed hair, clean shaven, spotless. 

“Trash… mouth?” 

And he hadn’t known what to say, hadn’t had the right words for the feelings that had been swirling around in his stomach, butterflies and nausea, hearing that name, unable to land firmly on any reliable emotion, somewhere between terrified of something unseen and delighted by what was. 

Because it was _Eddie_, Eddie from when he was a kid, Eds, Eddie with the fat mom and the fanny pack, a participant in every feeling of joy he could associate with the past, even if he couldn’t really remember what those moments had been. All he’d known was that he’d been happy, he’d been happy once, somewhere in the buzzing summer sun, somewhere lying on hot grass, blue skies, ice cream, the fourth of July and video games. And Eddie. 

All he’d known was that he’d wanted to be again, happy. He’d wanted living, breathing, offering, like the first light of spring after a long winter, taken by surprise year after year, the craving for sunlight hitting him like a freight train, so long in resignation, sleet and snow. 

And he’d known that there was a sense of doom in him, that there were long shadows cast by the summer, knowing that Eddie felt it too, but if they just stuck together they just might be able to convince themselves that there had only been the joy, that there had been only jokes, only laughter. And like a hearth, still and cold for years and years, he’d felt something warm begin to flicker, a tinderbox considering a spark, just beginning to smoke, standing together, making fun of him, getting made fun of back in that crowded room, everyone else falling away until it was just them. Laughing. 

And he’d been burning ever since. 

When he emerges from the shower, scrubbed raw, still feeling his skin crawling with dried blood, terror still lodged in his throat, cheeks red and ruddy, five o’clock shadow still going strong, dressed in hospital clothes and a wedding ring on each hand, the nurse is still there waiting for him, cutting him off before he can get the words out, before he can ask. 

“No news, love, you’ll just have to wait.” 

And he does. 


	2. Part 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The waiting room and the waiting that has to go on there.

By the time The Losers show up he’s stopped crying, like he’s just run out of tears, like the space inside of him where he’d kept them is empty, everything’s empty, all hollow on the inside. He’s been holding a styrofoam cup of tea for hours, but he can’t remember being given it, thinks it unlikely he asked for it, staring at his own reflection, watching it wobble, dark circles in under his eyes, sunken cheeks, looking like shit. 

But even that he can’t take in. 

Everything is numb, blank, like he dug so deep he’s just hit bedrock, a long fall and a sudden stop, barely breathing, organs probably shutting down, he can’t say. 

A newscast is whispering on to itself on the wall, a clock ticking somewhere, the hospital in motion around him, rushing from one emergency to the next, a new set of certain facts every few minutes, a new set of problems, solutions, injuries and cures. And amidst it, he was left, suspended in some internal waiting room, left in a corridor, to wait for answers, for him to come back, to be brought back to him. In the mean time, he keeps his head down and his glasses off, hunched over his knees, preferring the blur, preferring not to be able to read the signs, to keep himself in the dark, keep the emptiness sedentary, knowing that it’s better to case himself in concrete than to let the thrashing panic roar against his ribs, to feel it all so real and so raw. 

In his head they never left the apartment, in his head they’re still at home, it’s a Saturday night, they’re standing at the kitchen counter sorting through take-out menus, trying to figure out which ones have closed down and which ones will still deliver. In his head, they’re still sitting on Eddie’s couch in their twenties, his feet up on the coffee table, odd socks, idly flipping between channels, Eddie under his arm, still dressed in his office clothes and full up on a dinner of old pasta bake, knowing they’ll either fell asleep on the couch or stumble off to bed. But in either case they’ll fall asleep together, like a matching pair fit snugly together, more comfortable against him than he’d ever been anywhere else, resting his cheek down on his head, Eddie’s hand on his thigh.

In his head, they’re still there. 

“Richie!” 

He jerks back in his seat, startling like a jolt of electricity sent down his spine, pushing his glasses on, wide eyed through the cracks, cold tea spilling over his fingers, half-expecting Eddie, so ready to believe that it’s all soon to be over, that its not real, that he won’t have to live like this for long. Instead he’s thrust back into the hospital, stomach clenching, gripping the back of his plastic chair, the signs and notices all crystal clear, so far away from their home, still so far to go, still alone, still without him. 

Bev comes first, running down the linoleum corridor, showered and in fresh clothes, hair still unbrushed, waving at him, a look of distressed urgency on her face. 

He finds himself on his feet before he knows what he’s doing, rising to her, tea put down, and for a moment it almost seems like she’s going to collide with him, tackled like a football player, hit like a city bus. But instead, she settles in front of him like a bird on a wire, her hands fluttering as though she’s not sure whether’ll he’ll flinch, if any of this is in her jurisdiction, if she has an expertise to offer, her face all twisted, eyebrows pressed together. 

“Oh, Rich,” she whispers, voice so soft, as if he’s something small and breakable, impossibly fragile. After a moment, she seems to cave in on him, arms turning around his shoulders, pulling him down, hand on the back of his head and he tries to hesitate, to resist, but he can’t hold onto it, can’t keep his arms from going around her, eyes slipping closed over her shoulder, letting her hug him as though he’s already grieving, as though Eddie’s already dead and he’s already gone and it already over and he’s lost it all. 

Already dead, already dead, already dead.

And all of a sudden it’s like he’s holding onto his composure by a single string of thread, arms shaking around her, barely keeping his cool from slipping through his fingers, knowing that he can’t sit with that thought right now, can’t start to imagine that future knowing he doesn’t want it, that he won’t be able to live it, not for long.

He won’t be able to live without him, not after so long, he won’t know how to function, where to put his hands, sit still, keep from looking for him in their empty apartment. He hasn’t done laundry in fifteen years, he doesn’t know what kind of coffee he likes anymore, won’t be able to sleep without him, which take-out to order. Every part of his existence so used to being balanced out by him, steadied, stabilised, he’ll be all thrown out of whack like a planet knocked out of orbit, a house with cracked foundations. He’ll crumble. 

He hugs Bev back, arms tightening, eyes stinging, golfball in his throat, forced to suck in shaky breaths, desperately trying to scramble back into their apartment, forget, bring Eddie back to him, back to their sofa, knowing that if he starts considering the hospital, he’ll stopping being able to breath, his airways closing, drowning on dry land, they won’t be able to contain him, he won’t be able to contain himself. 

He pats her back, unable to keep his breath from hitching. 

“Come on Bev,” his voice comes out like a gasp, choking on the words, nothing like himself, “I’m gonna fuckin’ sob.” 

She releases him like a vice unwound, looking up at him with tearful eyes, distress still clear on her features, looking at him like she wants to be able to keep him up, wants to be able to save him from this, take it back for him, share this burden. 

But she knows she can’t and he can see it in her eyes. 

She takes a moment to run her hands up and down his arms before she steps back, every gesture just a ghost of something he’s in the process of loosing, something he’ll never be able to replace if it leaves him. Every touch just makes him remember, remember like something getting carved out of him, forcibly removed, unable to breathe as he imagines the way his skin will feel untouched by him for the rest of his life, how empty he’ll become, how empty he’d been back before he’d seen Eddie in that crowded room, cold and bitter and lost. 

Those first few nights had been more like a collision than a coming together, a bit rough, a bit over-eager, a dare, a competition, a touch of desperation, a hiss of starvation, content with the fact that neither of them had ever learned how to be gentle. And it had taken months for him to notice, months and months of waking up against him, with him in his arms, months of falling asleep on the couch together, of holding hands in the supermarket, his hair tucked behind his ears, temperature taken with the back of his knuckles, it had taken him months to notice that when Eddie touched him, it made him never want to be touched by anyone else. 

But even then he hadn’t been able to take it seriously, wrapped up Eddie’s pristine sheets, waking up together, so easy to dismiss, to ignore. Instead they’d learned how to roll out of bed together, laughing, joking, as if it was easy, starting the day not mentioning it and ending it the same. For those first few months they’d only been able to exist in the quiet din between jokes, between bouts of teasing, unable to talk about the little things, the things that were growing, brewing, the lingering touches, the search for each other in bedsheets, kissed cheeks, extra toothbrushes, preferred brands of coffee in each other’s pantries. Instead, they’d spent months upon months keeping it simple, keeping it clean, hands on each other only in the dark. 

But it couldn’t last and it didn’t. 

The losers come at him like a funeral procession, Ben after Bev, Mike after Ben, Bill after Mike, throwing their arms around him like they don’t know what they’re supposed to be doing, not sure what sort of comfort they have to offer, if he’s the sort of horror that can be comforted, not when it’s all so real, still balanced on the razors edge, all one way or all the other. 

But they’re still bastards, the lot of them, hugging him like that, telling him nice things, hopeful things as if he has it in him to be hopeful, as if he can’t tell that they all know now, as if he can’t tell how painstakingly aware they all are of how much more he has to loose. They look at him knowingthat he won’t be able to go home like they will, that where they can hope to forget, he can only hope he won’t have to live that long. They hug him like he’s made of porcelain, the eggshells under their boots, the last splintering pillar before the ceiling comes crashing down, somewhere between trying to hold him together and terrified of increasing the pressure, of being the thing to make the cracks spread that little bit further.

In silence, they take there places in seats like stage actors waiting in place for the lights to come back on, Bev beside him, Ben beside her, Mike and Bill across, the news broadcast still talking to itself on the wall, muttering on about other people’s affairs. And he’s surrounded by them, held by them in the strangest way, the air is thick with their awkward tension, with their words unsaid, questions almost bursting out of them as they sit on their hands, keep their mouths shut. In the heady silence their eyes flicker back and forth, keeping themselves to only glances, glancing at the rings on his fingers, Eddie’s phone in his hand, for the evidence they might have missed, clues they’d failed to pick up on, the secrets they’d kept. 

And already, he missed the restaurant. 

He missed that feeling, playing undercover together, looking across the table at him, cheeks rosy after two beers, so lovely, grinning at each other as they revisited every mom joke they’d forgotten, flirting and catcalling, almost like it was courtship again. He missed how simple the stories they’d told had seemed, not completely untrue, just a few names changed and details embellished, entertaining, half joking, brushing off the fear like they’d been doing for years. He missed mouthing _‘I love you’_ to him every time they’d looked away, hazarding a wink, watching Eddie laugh, being thrilled by him, thrilled that he was here, that he was beautiful, that nothing of this place was as scary as it had seemed.

But now, here he is, in a hospital with an ensemble of childhood friends, unable to think about anything but the life he’d had, unable to face the fact that somewhere in this building the man he’d chosen to spend his life with was under a knife, unable to face the fact that he was staring down a silence too big to fill, that he was alone, that he was alone and no matter how many times he’d winked, mouthed the words or said them aloud, he was never sure enough that he knew. 

The Losers keep their eyes from him like if they look at him for too long he’ll cry, or yell, or start throwing things at walls, as if they can see how barely balanced he is. 

“Jesus christ,” he can’t keep the hiss from his voice, something almost bitter worming out of his mouth, no jokes, no patience, no levity, hackles raised. “Just ask, I don’t care.” 

For a second there’s silence, before they all open their mouths at once, eyes flickering between each other as if trying to figure out who has the best question through telepathy and eye contact alone.

Bill breaks the stalemate and the relief is instant. 

“How-how long ago did you get married?” 

And that question should be easier, but his brain is so fried that he has to take off his glasses to process it. But at least their eyes are settled now, stepping a bit more firmly on the eggshells, asking questions, asking to be let in to the space he’d created for Eddie, the space he’d made so that they could go back, face whatever needed facing, even after so long of running from it. 

“Ah, fuck,” he pinches the bridge of his eyes, “ugh, I proposed in 2004, but… I’m pretty sure we got actually hitched in 2005. He-he wanted it to be in the spring.” 

He’d wanted it to be big, beautiful, an alter, a gazebo, new growth on the trees, three courses of canapés and a catering team, he’d wanted tailors tuxedoes and peace lilies, he’d wanted them in white, lace table clothes, he’d wanted a priest, a rabbi, a monk, and a bishop, he’d wanted balloons, and brochures, he’d wanted speeches and champagne, he’d wanted it all. 

“You proposed?” Ben pipes up from somewhere on the other side of Bev and Richie’s eyes shoot up, yanked out of remembering it, staring at the floor, remembering the way Eddie had taken him by the collar to kiss him, remembering the surprise, followed by the butterflies that had lasted long into the night. 

“Yeah, I proposed, fuck off.” 

Someone laughs, but he isn’t sure which who, he knows it isn’t him.

“How?” Bev’s hand appears on his knee, “how’d you do it?” 

He runs an unsteady hand through his hair, trying to think even further back, back to who he’d been then. He remembers carrying the rings around for months, trying to find the perfect moment, flip-flopping between wanting to be smooth and low-key and wanting fanfare, fireworks, sky writing, a flash mob, whatever. In the end the choice got made for him. 

“Uh,” he rubs his temples, “He… He found them. He was going through the hamper and the box fell out of my jeans. I had been going to propose during dinner, but I chickened out and he found them anyway,” he gestures vaguely, rubbing his hand over his mouth, pulling at his beard, remembering it like a form of self-harm, like a hurricane victim thinking about the house they’d built from foundations. He can remember sitting in bed after dinner, flicking through his phone, remembers the sound of the box hitting the floor, the soft thud of the carpet and the way his heart had launched into his throat, suddenly frozen, still only half way into his pyjamas, made of concrete. 

He’d watched him pick it up, watched him open it, suddenly terrified, heart beating savagely, all his hairs on end, holding himself so shatteringly still he was surprised he didn’t start to crack, so ready to show himself out of his own apartment as Eddie had looked up at him, eyes wide. 

“What the fuck, Richard,” he’d whispered. 

Richie had said the first thing that came to mind. 

“I-I was gonna ask you if you thought your mom would still have me.” 

“Fuck off.” 

He stares at his hands, remembering the astonishment he’d felt, watching Eddie take a ring from the box and hold it up to the light, watching him decide that it would do, the box tossed back to him, thrown almost carelessly, for him to take his own. He’d meant to ask, meant to be down on one knee, meant to have some good words, some good jokes to fill the air, but somehow, he’d never thought he’d get this far, far enough to be watching, slack jawed as Eddie looked at himself in the mirror, watching the gold on his hand glinting as he turned it, still unfamiliar, still new. 

But again, Eddie all but assumed his position, confirming that this was real, that he was wanted, seen, a participant, loved. 

“So are you gonna put it on, or am I marrying someone else?” 

Richie had stared at him, mouth opening and closing like a fish, unable to take it in, take in the reality of it. In the end all he could do was shake his head, blink away tears he hadn’t realised were brewing, choking on the golfball in his throat. 

“I… I am going to need a _big_ fucking drink.”

“Same.” 

And by the time he woke up the next morning, the ring was on his finger and he didn’t think he was going to ever be able to get it off, and Eddie was splayed out against his side, bound the same. And it was beautiful, beautiful for its clumsiness, for its lack of grace, for the space they’d created for each other, the way they’d learned to inhabit it, tucked against each other. 

“He said yes?” 

Richie glances up at him, lost somewhere deep inside, in that person he’d been, the things he’d helped to build, Bill siting forward in his chair, eyes on him, investment clear in him. 

Richie holds up his hands, a ring on each, one stuck there, and the other ill-fitting. 

“Take a goddamn guess, William.” 

They laugh and it's the worst. 

And he tells them stories because he has so many. Their first apartment, their second apartment, the one that flooded, going on tour together, hotels, bars, their favourite places to eat dinner, Eddie’s brief stint at a vegan, Richie’s brief stint doing yoga, the busted knee he’d gotten falling out of bed, their goldfish, their plans to get a dog, but not one that sheds. All of it just comes tumbling out of him, like a sidewalk prophet rambling, unable to comprehend his own devotion, just knowing that the worship will never stop coming and coming. 

They listen to him with sad eyes, mourning already on their shoulders, together in grief, and he thinks they understand, understand why they did it, why they’d agreed to pretend. They must have felt it too, been feeling it for years, the quiet, pervasive instinct to not let loved things near Derry, that the only protection is distance. Or secrets. Something deep and buried had whispered that it was a risk they just couldn’t take, a shadow in the corners of their eyes with long teeth and a threat, eager for weak spots, for love where none should have been able to grow, as soft and easily bruised as a peach in June. 

So they’d hidden it. They’d made Eddie a wife based off an ongoing joke and him the redrafted life of a bachelor, alone on a couch where he hadn’t been alone on a couch in years, struggling to remember the jokes he’d made as a single man. 

And it had been funny until it suddenly wasn’t. 

But he thinks they understand.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Listen, I fucking love fake relationships and I am so here for them as a trope, but on the other hand secretly married is dangerously underrated and it is a crime that we don't see more of it. I am a trend setter, please set this trend. 
> 
> Also thanks for all the comments and kudos. Really. 
> 
> I had all but abandoned this fic, but honestly they were really lovely to receive and I really appreciate it. Big love.


End file.
